London Polish Exiles to Take Government Seals to Warsaw

By CRAIG R. WHITNEY, Special to The New York Times

Published: December 19, 1990

LONDON, Dec. 18—
The Polish government in exile, which has been proudly holding out in London for 50 years, will hand over the seals of office to Lech Walesa in Warsaw on Saturday, its members say.

Ryszard Kaczorowski, president-in-exile since his predecessor died in 1989, said that he would fly to Warsaw with the red presidential banner, the presidential and state seals, the presidential sashes and the original text of the Constitution of 1935.

"Walesa was chosen in a free election, so I decided to give him the symbols that we had been holding since the war," the 70-year-old Mr. Kaczorowski said.

The ceremonies on Saturday will be a footnote to the chapter of Polish history that began with the Nazi armies overrunning the western part of the country in 1939. The Polish Government fled to Paris and then London, where it refused to recognize first the German-Soviet dismemberment of their country and later the Communist Government that ruled from 1947 until last year.

The last countries to recognize the London Poles as the country's legitimate government were Spain and Ireland, which also eventually came to terms with the Communists like the rest of the world. But the government in exile carried on nonetheless, with the support of the 150,000 Poles living in Britain. Cabinet Talks Collapse

The decision by Jan Olszewski, 60, a lawyer who has advised the Solidarity trade union since its birth in 1980, was the first setback for Mr. Walesa since his overwhelming victory in Poland's presidential election Dec. 9.

Mr. Olszewski gave no details of his differences with Mr. Walesa.

Solidarity officials said Mr. Walesa had also asked Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, an entrepreneur, and Antoni Macierewicz, a right-wing politician, to start consultations on a government.